Cargill, the agricultural giant, is looking beyond America’s Mid-West to keep the world fed as food prices soar

Across the plains of the American midwest, corn stalks are toppling over — but
nobody is scything them down.

The worst drought since 1988 has baked the normally fertile soil into
impenetrable pavement, leading to an outbreak of what is known as
“rootless-corn syndrome”.

The US Department of Agriculture slashed its corn production forecast by 12%
last week. The corn price, meanwhile, has jumped 40% in recent weeks.

Paul Conway, vice-chairman of Cargill, the world’s biggest agribusiness, says
we better get used to it. “This is the third time in the past five years
we’ve had this type of problem [extreme weather],” he said.

“If you take the influence of biofuels, the ‘financialisation’ of commodities,
1 billion people being lifted out of poverty, the 100-year decline that we
have seen in food prices [as a share of income] is probably over.”